


Thick as thieves

by killerweasel



Category: Bones (TV), Leverage
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerweasel/pseuds/killerweasel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things don't quite go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thick as thieves

Title: Thick as thieves  
Fandom: Leverage/Bones  
Characters: Eliot Spencer, Seely Booth  
Word Count: 1,359  
Rating: R

AU set preseries to _Leverage_ and _Bones_

**Thick as thieves**

Opening my eyes hurt. Hell, just breathing hurt. Everything had been going just fine and fucking dandy. Gregor and his guys were going to give me what I’d been sent for. At least until the idiot from the FBI kicked the door in. Then I took a baseball bat to the ribs followed by a solid punch to the temple by a guy who probably ate nails for breakfast. The world went black after that.

I knew better than to panic. Panicking got you killed. I’d been in worse situations than this before. A bunch of nasty memories threatened to rear their ugly heads and I squashed them back down again. The blood on my skin was starting to go tacky, which meant I had been here, wherever here was, for a little while. My ribs hurt like a son of a bitch and I was really hoping they were just bruised to hell and not broken.

The ropes on my wrists weren’t tied too tightly because I could still feel my fingers. I flexed my hands and then went still when they came into contact with warm flesh. If it was a guard, they would have hurt me by now. I carefully stretched my arms out as far as my body would allow, ignoring the ache in my shoulders. As I traced along bare flesh, my fingers grew sticky with what I had to assume was fresh blood. At least I wasn’t in a room with a corpse. Been there, done that.

There was a soft groan from behind me. I pulled away and then worked on turning around. The room wasn’t completely dark; a little strip of light was coming in from just above the doorway. I could barely make out the features of the FBI agent from earlier. “Figures.” A nasty gash along his hairline which was probably going to need stitches since it was still oozing blood. He groaned again, louder this time.

“What kind of FBI guy comes alone into the den of the Borshkoff underworld?” I hadn’t seen a partner, but maybe they’d come in after I was unconscious. Looking around revealed us to be the only ones in the room. If there had been a partner, the odds were pretty damn good they were either dead or being tortured right now.

His eyes fluttered open and quickly slammed shut again. “Fuck.”

“Pretty much.” I leaned in to see if he had any other injuries. There was blood on his skin, most of which seemed to be his own. Everything else was in shadow. “Anything else hurt other than your head?”

“I can’t feel my hands.” No panic in his voice, which I took to be a good sign. He must be a seasoned agent and not a rookie.

“Can you sit up on your own? I’ll help you if you can get started.”

“Give me a second.” I heard him take a couple of deep breaths. He hissed in pain as he started to get his upper body off of the floor. I tilted my own, getting my shoulder under his back and shoving as hard as I could. By the time he was upright, both of us were panting. “Thanks.”

I eased my body around so I could touch his hands with my own. My fingers closed on his and I squeezed them. “You feel that?”

“A little.” He shifted his body slightly. “Can you get the ropes off or at least loosen them?”

“I can try.” After a couple of minutes, I realized my fingers weren’t going to do the trick. I needed something sharper. Getting to my knees, I strained my eyes to see if I could find something to use. A short metal bar was sticking out from the wall. That might just do the trick. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.”

He snorted. “I take it you’re not with them?”

Getting to my feet was damn near impossible and I ended up scooting along the floor on my ass towards the wall. “The Borshkoffs? Hell no.” when I reached my goal, I lashed out with my feet until the end of the bar snapped off and clattered to the floor. Picking it up was a royal pain in the ass and I nicked my fingers more than once before I got a good grip on the thing. “You ever hear of Golden Tiger?”

“Isn’t he the head of one of some big crime family?”

“That’s the one. These idiots stole something very precious to him. It was my job to get it back in order to prevent a war. I’d almost closed the deal when you came crashing in.” Going back across the room proved to be difficult since I dropped the metal piece twice on the way. My fingers were coated in blood by the time I was next to him again. “You alone?”

“My partner got some bad food last night. I thought I’d be able to do it on my own. Guess I was wrong.” He sighed. “I was supposed to arrest Alexander Karofski, Borshkoff’s third in command, for making threats against a federal judge. Didn’t think they’d put up too much of a fight about it.”

“Hold still.” I began to saw at the ropes, pausing every once in a while to swear as the metal sliced into my flesh. “Maybe thought I was with you.” That thought was amusing and I chuckled softly. “Golden Tiger is not going to be happy if I don’t get his shit back.” While I was very good at what I did, occasionally things turned to crap and I ended up paying for it.

“Independent contractor?” He flexed his arms and I heard the ropes start to give. It wouldn’t be too long before he was free.

“Something like that.” The metal slipped, cutting deeply into the pad of my thumb. Snarling in pain, I took a couple of very deep breaths through my nose until I calmed back down. “I’m more of a retrieval specialist.”

“Why are you helping me? You could have left me here.” The ropes popped apart and I heard him mutter something under his breath as the circulation began to return to his hands.

“I don’t leave people behind.” That was something my daddy had drilled into my head when I was a kid. He’d been wounded four times in ‘Nam going back for fallen comrades. “Besides, you’re going to help me get what I need and I’m going to help you get your bad guy.”

“Damn, you cut the hell out of your hands.” He picked up the metal piece and began to work on the ropes holding my wrists together. “And how exactly do you think we’re going to do that when we’re locked in here?”

“I’ve got a plan.”

\---

“That’s a music box, Eliot.” Booth’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You risked your life for a music box?”

“That box belonged to Golden Tiger’s great-grandmother back in the old country. He was having it brought here from a museum in Prague and Borshkoff got wind of it. The rumor was Borshkoff was going to smash it on video and then deliver what was left to Golden Tiger’s door.” I started to reach for the key, but there was no way I’d be able to do with my fingers bandaged.

Booth saw what I was trying to do and turned the key himself. One of Chopin’s preludes began to play. I eased my body back into the chair with a sigh. “I guess I should thank you for making the paperwork at the hospital disappear.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled at me before looking serious. “You really think Alexander’s going to turn on his boss?”

“He will with the information I gave you. Just make sure to keep him someplace very safe.” Even if they had him in witness protection, someone like me would have no problem tracking his ass down and making sure he didn’t talk.

Booth’s cell rang. He checked the number and sighed. “I have to get going. Be careful.”

“What’s the fun in that?”


End file.
